African applications of experiences with educational free and

African applications of experiences with educational free and open source programmes in developed countries Presentation at the e. Learning Africa 2010 Conference Signe Hermann, M. Sc. Open University of Tanzania

The European Situation: - On average, 5 – 16 year olds spend an hour or more a day online (2010), and up to 6 hours in front of a computer - 63. 8 % percent of the European population have daily internet access (2009), and more than 50 % of homes have at least one computer (48 % - 91 %, 2007) - 72 % of the European primary schools have broadband internet (2009), and in secondary and tertiary education giving a link and a few instructions as homework is normal - It is guesstimated that 100 % of tertiary educational institutions and between 75 – 100 % of other primary / secondary educational institutions use FOSS in some form, but hard to come by detailed statistical data

Reasons for using FOSS in education in Europe: - Stability and virus-free environments - Accessibility (no license problems, easy installation, students can download and install without involving IT personnel) and relevance. FOSS programmes are chosen because they’re the best, not because they’re the cheapest - Programmes in use range from web servers and OS over visualisation tools like Green. Foot or Geo. Gebra to scientific programmes like R or La. Te. X or “homegrown” programmes built to meet special needs not catered for in commercial software - Good documentation for teachers, students and instructors - One problem: Some FOSS software hasn't been validated and you can't use results calculated with it in scientific articles, enforcing a “double software standard”, e. g. with R (statistics)

Obstacles to using FOSS in Europe: - Most European governments have passed bills or resolutions encouraging the use of FOSS. However, some people prefer to keep the proprietary software because of a perception of: - Lacking documentation / manuals for FOSS - Compatibility / interoperability issues - Lack of staff expertise causing training needs - Time costs of identifying relevant software - User preferences

Challenges in increasing the use of FOSS education in Europe: - Contractual obligations to proprietary software companies - Reluctance to learning to use new software - Migration problems and migration costs - Most FOSS has been created with regards to functionality rather than user-friendliness and consequently some of it requires a high level of computer literacy

The African Situation: - Samples from 17 countries show that on average 46. 58 out of 1, 000 Africans use the internet, ranging from 0. 29 in Liberia to 118. 5 in Zimbabwe (Internet. World. Stats. com, data collection methods a little uncertain) - Only 20 % of African students have access to a computer regardless of internet connectivity (ICT 4 D) - In most countries, learning how to use a computer isn't compulsory in primary and secondary education, and you have to pay an additional school fee to learn just the basics (which is most often proprietary software) - As far as I have been able to find out, only South Africa has passed any bills on the use of FOSS

FOSS in Education in Africa - Mostly OS (GNU/Linux versions) and web servers, i. e. software running in the “background” - Often driven by local enthusiasts or introduced by visiting researchers from other parts of the world - Many institutions of learning don’t have ICT policies (this is also true of Europe) - Special needs for “power cut friendly” software - The large distribution of proprietary software in other spheres of society (as well as used by lecturers) along with the compatibility issues discourages use of FOSS - Students are negatively prejudiced against FOSS and “awareness creation” is needed before they freely embrace the idea of FOSS (user commitment). Little or no knowledge about the difference between FOSS and proprietary software

Reasons for using FOSS in education in Africa: - Low cost - Stable, powerful and flexible programmes - “Light” OS packages enables recycling of old computers - Facilitates a culture of knowledge sharing and open learning - Educational software can, to some extend, alleviate teacher shortages, given that ICT facilities exist - ”Localisation”, i. e. being able to change the software to match language spoken, functionality needs, etc. - Development of local ICT capacity as a consequence of learning to use the FOSS programmes - Allows access to highly specialised scientific programmes - Less vendor dependency allows for legal local business initiatives

Obstacles to using FOSS in Africa: - Development issues such as hunger, conflict, natural disasters, diseases, lack of clean drinking water and sanitation, illiteracy, unemployment, lack of skilled staff (e. g. low computer literacy among teachers) and investment in academia (causing brain drain) - Internet connections (and power grids) are often so poor and expensive that downloading anything without a download-manager is hopeless - Africa outside of SA isn’t considered a market for software by software companies, so availability and exposure is low - Students and staff are not familiar with using websites (less than 20 % of my ICT students had accessed the course website) - Generally there is less than one computer per 100 people - School fees discourages acquisition of ICT skills - Costs of finding relevant software and training extra instructive personnel

Challenges in increasing the use of FOSS in education in Africa: - Lack of FOSS advocates and a lack of a culture of volunteering (IDRC, Good to Great FOSS), as well as a lack of development capital - Shortage of people trained in logical, mathematical thinking, programming skills and software development, and if somebody develops skills: Brain drain, supporting a culture of buy-don’t-build and selling back software developed by Africans no longer living in Africa - ICT infrastructure generally only available in big cities or too expensive (usb modems have pretty good coverage) - Language issues and (computer) literacy issues - Training teachers and instructors in using FOSS software - Low internet penetration means limited communication between FOSS communities (IDRC, Good to Great FOSS) - Cheap pirated software is widely circulated or regarded as free

What needs to be addressed before we can apply European experiences? -The international FOSS community needs to understand take an interest in the special needs of newcomers from developing contexts and their specific situation, such as including countermeasures for poor networks and unstable power grids - Redressing conditions propagating brain drain - Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, especially nr. 2 and nr. 8 - Increasing computerisation and internet penetration - Introducing computer literacy in primary education - Encouragement of logical, critical and independent thinking in all levels of education - Investment in instructive ICT personnel (e. g. tutorial assistants)

Recommendations: - Governments should consider interoperability when acquiring new software for official use, passing laws to promote use of FOSS in professional and learning environments and investment in ICT infrastructure (possibly through private-public partnerships) - Companies should migrate to FOSS - FOSS user groups should be created and encouraged. User groups are known to exist in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zanzibar - Institutions of learning should encourage visiting researchers to share their FOSS expertise. They need to invest in training instructors and teachers so that they can help and support students and lecturers in using FOSS. Because of the myths surrounding FOSS ”awareness creation” is needed - The FOSS community needs to recognise that novices encounter problems that are considered basic by super-users, as well as looking into off-line options and circumstances specific to developing countries such as power cuts and poor internet connections

Practical Recommendations - Successful FOSS projects in Africa have a large amount of off-line, or LAN, functionality and support - Software should include measures to counter data-loss caused by power cuts, and download managers should be installed in all ICT facilities - Awareness creation is needed, i. e. introduction to the fact that various OS and software packages exist and that proprietary software isn’t necessarily the best option - Courses in basic internet use for both teachers and students - Train (student) instructors in the use of the chosen FOSS and have practical sessions for teachers and students - Make use of others’ knowledge of FOSS by inviting visiting researchers to share their FOSS experiences, and engage in joint FOSS projects with universities in developed countries

Thank you! Any questions? Special Thanks to Richard Okuti (EACOSS), The Department of innovations and Software Development, Faculty of Computing and IT, Makerere University, Steven Kateeba (ICT professional), Gideon Hayford Chonia (researcher, University of Zurich), Alex Kisakye (systems administrator, Uganda Christian University), John Kibuuka (easysites. org), Sebastian Gullach Büttrich (researcher, ICT University of Copenhagen) and Søren Feodor Nielsen (researcher, University of Copenhagen), for taking the time to answer my questions